Why the Bidens matter

The passing at only 46 of Beau Biden the elder son of Vice President Joe Biden and a former attorney general of Delaware, is particularly poignant. Forty-three years earlier, Beau had survived the car accident that took the life of his mother and infant sister and shattered his father's life.

Now, as vice president, a deeply bereaved Joe Biden was back in his home state over the weekend, along with his second wife, Jill, and surviving adult children Hunter and Ashley. On Thursday, at the state capitol here, they stood beside Beau's flag-draped casket, marking his service in Iraq as an officer in the Delaware Army National Guard and his civilian service to his state.

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Fellow Delawareans stood patiently in long lines and chilly gloom for an hour or more outside to pass the casket, and then to greet the members of the state's recognized first family. On Friday, hundreds more filed through the family's Catholic parish in Wilmington, where on Saturday President Obama delivered a touching eulogy.

Beau Biden as the state's attorney general gave up a chance in 2009 to take the U.S. Senate seat held for 36 years by his father until he was sworn in as vice president. He chose instead to remain in his state job to complete the prosecution of a brutal, unimaginably vicious serial child sex abuser; Beau was determined that the accused would never visit his cruelty on other small children.

At the time, the attorney general was considered a shoo-in to fill his dad's Senate seat. Instead he set his eye on the governorship, for which he also was an odds-on choice, when brain cancer suddenly knocked him out of politics and took his life.

The blow to the whole Biden family brought an uncommon outpouring of statewide mourning for the popular clan. The vice president, known throughout Delaware simply as Joe, has long been held in the highest esteem here. But similarly revered is the whole Biden family, which includes Joe's sister, Valerie, brothers Jimmy and Frank, grandchildren and in-laws, for its visible solidarity, cordiality and public service.

Jill Biden is a community college professor of English and literature and a champion of the community college institution, which Mr. Obama has embraced with her. Hunter has been associated with World Food Program USA, and Ashley has been a social services professional for the state Department of Services for Children, Youth and Families.

Valerie was Joe's first campaign manager, running his first campaign for the New Castle County Council in 1970 and then for the Senate in 1972, organizing family, friends and their school-age kids who canvassed the state on weekends. Meanwhile, Joe, invoking the family reputation for forthrightness, promised "on my word as a Biden" to do what he said he would, and Delawareans came to understand what that meant.

In Beau, especially, they saw the father in the son. He bore a striking physical resemblance to Joe, broad smile and all, though perhaps with a bit more serious demeanor than the outspoken father, whose gift of gab became a trademark and also a target of partisan derision.

Through it all, Delawareans generally dismissed it, observing, "that's Joe," and embracing the Biden family and particularly Beau, seemingly destined to rise to similar heights achieved by his loving and widely admired father.

In these times, holding public office in itself is often considered an invitation to widespread abuse. But in Delaware at least, the public and private life of the Bidens has been an effective antidote.

Now, in their sorrow over the passing of Beau, they have demonstrated again the strong ties of familial togetherness that have always characterized the Biden clan, and the spirit of perseverance that more broadly marks the American people in times of personal and national tribulation.

Jules Witcover is a syndicated columnist and former long-time writer for The Baltimore Sun. His latest book is "The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power" (Smithsonian Books). He is also author of "Joe Biden: A Life of Trial and Redemption" (William Morrow). His email is juleswitcover@comcast.net.